HUMAN PARTS By Michael E. Stone Buses bombed and human parts Towers bombed and human hearts spread, sprayed, and scattered. Men unknown by men unknown. How halt this hatred darkness of fanatics crazy in their attics cellars stinking and dungeons of the soul all black? Darken glimmers false enlightenment, self-deception “this is what God wants, or history wants, or the nation’s spirit wants.” If God wants this, I want not Him....
How does an unbeliever pray? Yet I do. Some know God in halogen-bright blinding white light with black, black shadows. But I see grey. ‘Glory to God for dappled things’, for unclarities ambiguities complexities all, for greys. He will be one with His name: God’s wholeness then. But ours? – Michael Stone is Professor of Armenian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published poetry in Ararat, Avocet, Byline Magazine, Hazmat Review, King Log, Mandrake Poetry Review, Ruah, White Heron, ARC, and Voices Anthology....
One I address directly. such providential realism is not mine. liturgy, though, has its own rhythm. familiar service, words soothe the soul. suddenly, meaning strikes home, pierces the heart! let the pattern of words then, known, loved, carry us and, if we are lucky, every now and then focus in a different way, sharp, impelling, shock. 30 April, 2010
A straightforward, modest book, stands proudly alongside jewelled, gold-crusted treasures made for bishops and kings. Sewn with twine, and bound with leather over wooden boards, lovingly. Copied in a village church by a priest, for love of God, in black, blocky letters by stylus in carbon ink on thick stiff yellow paper laid and polished by hand. A note by a reader three centuries ago, records a memorial for his soul, and that of his dead mother....
Fields of Autumn Yellow (so striking it feels capitalized), rock outcropping excrescences, avenues of pylons marching like marionettes across the hills. black clouds on a screen of bright sky threaten 2 yellow and black sunshade umbrellas, odd static wasps on one foot like cranes. Fall, fall, fall yellow fall. October 2010
Metals and gems focus power Gold – red, yellow and white, amber’s eye, alabaster, turquoise from mines in Sinai, black smoky obsidian from volcano’s hearts. Blue saphires; and black opals bring bad luck.
I Red flowers in Russell Square Dogs in Russell Square Some as big as sheep Special red bins for dog poop As red as the postboxes and the telephone booths. II Chaos of polychrome people hurrying by before the hotel English girls with short skirts and heels, Moslem girls with kerchiefs Men in suits or short sleeved shirts or knitted shirts and knee shorts.
In the mountains of Lebanon, high stands of cedars, majestic green witnesses, a thousand years silent but still 2,000 years younger than those felled by Hiram, Solomon’s royal friend, floated to Jaffa and worked by Tyrrian carpenters, who knew the wood, whose hands coaxed forth its lustre and its depth. Cedars from Lebanon, for King Solomon’s Temple. Cedar oil poured on a scroll, against mould and worms. Cedar burns on the altar pleasing fragrance rises up to heaven....
An I is more complicated than it seems More complicated than I like to think Find it multi-layered, sneaky seeking in one path an outlet to other needs Yet writing as writing persists Why is bringing forth words harder than the need deliberately flowing or not freely to think To use the brain-that-sweats for the brain that sings The myriad worlds set blindly sinking before me Ready for a boot or a current jolt to tear me open at the seems....
A straightforward, modest book, stands proudly alongside jewelled, gold-crusted treasures made for bishops and kings. Sewn with twine, and bound with leather over wooden boards, lovingly. Copied in a village church by a priest, for love of God, in black, blocky letters by stylus in carbon ink on thick stiff yellow paper laid and polished by hand. A note by a reader three centuries ago, a memorial for his soul, and that of his dead mother....
YEREVAN CAFE By Michael E. Stone A little park off the Prospekt, half of it is a cafe now – not unpleasant – and the rest, abandoned. Mexican yuccas in tubs and cane garden furniture bound together with raffia, with round glass-topped tables, striving for a patio feeling, But unfinished. We sit there dining on the toughest guinea fowl ever hatched and a cool wind blows through, from one end to the other, mixing the aroma of traffic on the Prospekt and of gas pumps at the back....
Red poppies, fields of red poppies, and yellow flowers along the road. Last time I travelled this road was autumn, after summer and harvest. Now it’s spring. The sky - then bright, now grey, mountains outlined black cutouts against the eastern light. Rich ore colours, yellow red and black paint the road’s naked cuts. Bright yellow spring flowers replace autumn’s yellow stubble, purple bushes scattered on the mountains. Ararat’s snowy skirt modestly clouds its peak....
Khor Virap Michael E. Stone Khor Virap on a hill’s shoulder, not even reaching up to near-far Ararat’s ankles. Its wall and dome etched out. Square gravestones scattered at its foot, like so many children’s blocks, A boy sells doves, (turtle doves?). Ice cream and Coca Cola by Gregory’s vaulted pit, wall engrooved by ages’ reverent kiss. Genocide and Holocaust Michael E. Stone Genocide’s a hard word, killing a people holocaust too, whole burnt offering....
ARARAT AND YEREVAN By Michael E. Stone Over Yerevan Mount Ararat looms at dusk tenebrous, moon shines above its very peak, just like in tourist paintings. Then mountain fades into sky, and darkness is complete. BLACK MOUNTAINS By Michael E. Stone Here we go round the mulberry bush So quoth T.S. Eliot, But it’s a tree, not a bush, Grand, spreading, broad-leafed. At the bottom of the garden The neighbours’ branch grew over Could be climbed from our side and we did....
A stylized salt-cellar, in brown ceramic ovoid, a woman’s face, and a fringe of pottery hair on top hands at its sides. a marsupial Humpty-Dumpty with a pouch full of salt for flavour, and a pottery spoon.
White fluffy cotton balls, Carrying the poplar’s seed, Gather in cracks and crevices Along the lake’s front. The Island, they called it, in Sevan, But bound to the shore now, A hill, the churches on the top, Pop-up book cut-outs. Across, above the lake’s low green shoreline, Snow in the mountains’ folds, Mountains’ cotton ball seeds. Sevan’s Snow Lake Sevan’s bluish water shines like burnished steel. Hills low as huts are dappled with shadows shaped like Rorschach tests....